MARK NANCE/Sun-Gazette Lycoming County Courthouse.

The cast vote records or CVR’s from the county’s 2020 general election will remain confidential, at least for now, according to a story from PennLive on the state’s Department of State decision to appeal last month’s ruling by Judge Eric R. Linhardt to make them public.

Lycoming County did not appeal Linhardt’s order, but deferred to the Department of State, director of administration Matthew A. McDermot state, PennLive’s report stated.

The appeal now goes to the Commonwealth Court.

When Linhardt overturned a decision by the Office of Open Records, he stayed implementation of his ruling for 30 days to allow for an appeal, PennLive’s account stated.

Linhardt’s stay will now continue until the appeal is resolved.

According to PennLive, a state appellate court has never ruled on whether CVR’s are public.

In his opinion, Linhardt cited the Department of State’s “keen interest” in the litigation because of its potential to affect how requests for these records are handled throughout the commonwealth, PennLive said.

In a previous court document, the Office of Open records had claimed that disclosure of the information in the CVR’s could violate the constitutional guarantee of voting secrecy, the story said.

According to PennLive, a Department of State spokesperson contacted would not comment on the appeal because it is active litigation.

The issue began when Heather Honey, a Lebanon County voter, filed the initial Right-to-Know request for the county CVR’s-a request that was denied by Linhardt because she was not a county resident as was reported in an earlier PennLive story.

Three Republicans: state Rep. Joe Hamm, R-Hepburn Township; Donald C. Peters, the county’s GOP chairman; and Jeffrey J. Stroehmann, who intervened on Honey’s behalf, were given access to the CVR’s by Linhardt.

Last week, following the hand recount of two offices in the 2020 election, Stroehmann had expressed his hope that the group would be able to see the CVR’s.

Cast vote records or CVR’s are spreadsheets which contain raw data for ballots, but no identifiable information about the voter.

Linhardt’s ruling this week formally granted the petitions for the three county residents to intervene. However, he pointed out that although his December order gave the three access to the CVR’s, he had not explicitly granted their petitions to intervene in the case, PennLive reported.

In his ruling in December, Linhardt acknowledged that free and fair elections are the bedrock of the country’s democracy; the importance of public confidence in them cannot be overstated,” the account stated.

In support of his decision that CVR’s are public, Linhardt listed these findings according to PennLive: the Legislature intended the “contents” of ballot boxes or voting machines to refer deposited ballots and the mechanical inner working of the machines not the information contained from them; the Legislature intended to provide broad public access to the documents and records of county boards of election: in Lycoming County votes listed on the CVR are not in the order they were cast; and the release of the CVR does not violate the Pennsylvania Constitution’s guarantee of secrecy of voting as argued by the Department of State.

There was a surge in requests for CVR’s after Trump ally and MyPillow Founder Mike Lindell issued a call last year to followers to gather them from every county in the country, PennLive reported.